Even folks who have tried to restrain themselves from the use of fascist and Nazi labels have begun to run scared after the announcement today that racist, Jew-baiting Steve Bannon has just become one of the most powerful men in America. At The Political Animal<\/em> Martin Longman writes<\/span><\/a>:<\/p>\n

One of the shocking things I\u2019ve felt compelled to do since Donald Trump\u2019s unexpected election to be the next president of the United States is to bone up on my history by reading Joseph Goebbels Wikipedia page<\/span><\/a>. I did that last night, and I noted many disturbing parallels between Goebbels early career and the career of Trump\u2019s new chief White House strategist Steve Bannon<\/span><\/a>. Still, I was feeling vaguely guilty about even doing this research, as if I\u2019m bordering on the paranoid and letting my fears get the better of me.<\/p>\n

The problem is, I am hardly alone in thinking along these lines \u2026.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After George Bush was elected, my family toyed with the possibility of leaving the country \u2013 a move that would have been facilitated by the nature of my husband\u2019s work at that time. Now we are both retired and the truth is that few desirable countries welcome older folks who don\u2019t have money to invest in job creating ventures, and who, in countries with progressive social programs, may put a strain on their resources. We also have companion animals that we are obligated to keep and protect and might not be able to bring them with us to places that would otherwise welcome us.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019re still worried that getting out of Dodge might really be the right thing to do. So the second thought to cross our minds is that if we don\u2019t leave the country, we ought to leave Missouri.<\/p>\n

Missouri\u2019s a poor state, and its almost uniformly corrupt lawmakers don\u2019t seem to care if it gets poorer as long as they can get rich doing what\u2019s best for their even richer friends, and, in the process, free up businesses to discriminate along with putting uppity, promiscuous sluts in their places (nearly barefoot, pregnant and working for minimum wage in McDonalds\u2019 kitchens).* In the Missouri boondocks they call it religious freedom.<\/p>\n

Missouri\u2019s also awash with guns and militias. Beginning this year there\u2019s almost no regulation of firearms. Any type of firearm. You can shoot folks because they scare you. Stop and think about how many uptight, paranoid people there are, and then consider that in Missouri lots of the scariest of them have guns. And speaking of scary people, the Southern Poverty Law Center identifies<\/span><\/a> 22 hate groups located in Missouri \u2013 more than in just a handful of other states.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s\u00a0a veritable petri dish for growing Trumpian authoritarianism. It\u2019s got more than its share of those white people who are angry because the world rejects their version of reality, their anger both exploited and enabled by Trump\u2019s election. When the fecal matter finally hits the fan, Missouri may be an especially bad place for an couple of older progressives. In the past, we braced up, got on with our lives because, as with most things, we knew that this too would pass. But it threatens to be much worse this time.<\/p>\n

At our ages it\u2019s not easy to upend our lives by moving. There are lots of things to consider and I don\u2019t know what we\u2019ll do in the end. However, given the appointment of Bannon along with the police-state<\/span><\/a> and torture<\/span><\/a> rhetoric that is emanating from Trump\u2019s circle of domestic policy advisors, we are beginning to think that, at the very least, maybe we should get out of the heart of Trump\u2019s own country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even folks who have tried to restrain themselves from the use of fascist and Nazi labels have begun to run scared after the announcement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":645,"featured_media":35167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2119,119],"tags":[2821,2459],"yoast_head":"\n